The Cole Group did an amazing job for us -- tireless, thorough, and always on top of things. Matt introduced us to an impressive roster of candidates and helped us find someone who was a great leader and culture fit. Thanks again!

Ev Williams, Medium CEO

The Cole Group helped us find our Head of Business, Head of Sales and Head of Marketing at Asana. Jamie combines sheer competence with great communication. We were able to quickly align on a target profile and she screened dozens of candidates to help us find a perfect match. Throughout the process, she drove cadence for both us and the candidates to ensure we kept momentum.

Dustin Moskovitz, Asana CEO

Matt and his team led a thorough, yet expeditious search for a senior marketing leader for us. They were awesome to work with, and I would highly recommend them to any software startup in the valley.

Aaron Levie, Box CEO

The Cole Group helped us with our CRO search, and we went back to them when we wanted to find a new head of Marketing. They are fantastic to work with—informed, thoughtful, and responsive. They really emphasized understanding both our business and culture needs, and brought us the right kind of candidates quickly and consistently.

Mikkel Svane, Zendesk CEO

I join your legions of fans and recommenders! I heard a number of great things about The Cole Group prior to engaging and they were all true. Jamie is a great communicator who invested the time to understand us as a company and what made our CMO role unique. It wasn't just a single conversation, but a regular one. You guys should change your name to Needle-In-A-Haystack, Inc., because that's what you do!

Jay Simons, Atlassian President

Haven't the other testimonials on this page convinced you by now? Many recruiting firms are meh -- Matt and Jamie are great! We werevery happy to have worked with them!

John Collison, Stripe President and Co-Founder

The Cole Group are the best in the business. They are total pros who work hard to understand the fit - from a competence and cultural perspective - and use that to present the highest quality candidates. Consultative throughout and always available to help!

Joseph Ansanelli, Greylock Partner

The Cole Group exceeded my expectations in so many ways. Matt did way more than simply taking our requirements for the role and producing a pipeline of potential candidates. He took the time to understand the inner workings of our business and culture and helped us refine the requirements/role accordingly.

Sean Rad, Tinder CEO

I worked with The Cole Group to bring on NetSuite's CMO. Matt was collaborative, thoughtful and thorough. I met a slate of top people quickly and we made a fantastic hire. I wholeheartedly recommend Matt and his team!

Zach Nelson, NetSuite CEO

Jamie did the best work of any recruiter I have worked with in 30 years! I can't imagine what she could improve.

Andy Rachleff, Benchmark Capital co-founder and Wealthfront CEO

Matt was superb. I have worked with many search firms - The Cole Group was much better in terms of guidance, speed and communication!

Chano Fernandez, Workday EVP WW Field Operations

Jamie and The Cole Group dig deep - really deep - to understand what makes a leadership team effective together. From day one they are looking for alignment on experience and chemistry. They are passionate about people and her work and exhaustive in her research; their wealth of knowledge about terrific passive candidates is extraordinary. Plus Jamie's fun as hell to work with!

Mike Mansbach, MINDBODY President

Matt's an unbelievably talented and insightful exec recruiter, operating with very high integrity and with the clear the objective to find you that one candidate you will fall in love with. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with him as he's smart and exceptionally high on EQ - a perfect combination in his line of work. I would wholeheartedly recommend Matt; he's nothing short of a rock star.

Steven Schuurman, Elastic CEO

The Cole Group is in a league of their own. Their unique relationship with entrepreneurs and candidates as trusted advisors makes them incredibly effective. They're passion and enthusiasm from kickoff through the close and beyond, even in difficult situations. Working with The Cole Group is a no-brainer.

Ping Li, Accel General Partner

You'd be crazy not to work with The Cole Group - Grant felt like an extension of our team. They are incredibly networked and respected, and most importantly they have the judgment and patience to help you find the right person for the role. Much stronger counsel and better aligned than other search firms I've worked with.

David Fraga, InVision COO

We hired the best CMO on the market together and couldn't have done it without The Cole Group!! The Cole Group is a joy to work with and gets results.

Dan Siroker, Optimizely CEO

Jamie is amazing. She ran multiple executive searches for Polyvore. She developed a deep understanding of our business and culture, wasn't afraid to challenge us on what we thought were looking for, and even brought in longshot candidates that worked out fantastically. She was a real partner in recruiting our team. Thanks to Jamie, I found two people who I'd love to work with for the next 20 years.

Jess Lee, Sequoia Capital Partner

Grant did a great job throughout the process, with a comprehensive and much higher level of knowledge than had been my experience with other firms. He provided helpful counsel and sourced the best possible candidates for the role.

Kipp Bodnar, Hubspot CMO

Matt and The Cole Group ran a great search for us and helped us land an outstanding sales leader. They spent valuable time up front in the process to really understand our company - the business model, the role, the company culture and the type of person we were looking to attract. Matt then delivered a pipeline of quality candidates and efficiently managed the process from screening right through to hire.

Lew Cirne, New Relic CEO

I initially heard about Jamie when I polled Minted's group of 32 highly experienced angel investors for recruiter recommendations. Jamie and The Cole Group were the most recommended among our investors.

I have worked with Jamie on several executive searches for Minted. She goes far beyond the standard search service and into human resources strategy. She deeply understands our culture and our organization, and provides us with feedback and opinions on shaping the role and the candidates we target to fit best with the company. She is highly intelligent, willing to think in a contrarian way, and is a trusted advisor to me and to Minted. She is highly principled and stands by her commitments. Finally, Jamie is someone who has an authentic style and thus is able to get most candidates to engage with her. I can't recommend her highly enough.

Mariam Naficy, Minted CEO

Gillian was an amazing thought partner and provided an exceptional experience both for Apartment List and for the candidates interacting with our Company. We landed the perfect Chief Sales Officer and we couldn't be more thrilled. There is only one firm to turn to for executive search and that firm is The Cole Group. I look forward to our next chance to work together!

John Kobs, Apartment List CEO

Working with Rob and The Cole Group was the best search experience we've had to date. They communicated extremely well throughout the process such that I had a good sense for exactly what was happening throughout. Having gotten to know us so well, they saved time by only introducing us to very strong candidates and we got to a great outcome quickly. Highly recommended!

Tim Junio, Qadium CEO

Grant is the BEST. I absolutely recommend to any entrepreneur!! This was a significantly better experience than working with other search firms and it exceeded my expectations. Top notch work.

Leura Fine, Laurel & Wolf CEO

The Cole Group was a fantastic partner in helping us recruit and close our new CMO. Matt was hands-on and took the time to deeply understand our business and leadership needs. He listened carefully and adjusted during the process. He then introduced highly relevant candidates and helped us thoughtfully navigate the process to hire a leader who is a great fit for Pandora.

Chris Phillips, Pandora CPO

Matt is an unusually charismatic, soulful and effective executive recruiter. He is fun to work with; he is intuitive about the kind of person you really want to hire; he works extremely hard to source candidates personally; he never says die. I loved working with him and would recommend hiring him.

Glenn Kelman, Redfin CEO

Jamie and Matt are always the first call I make. I've partnered with them on some really tough searches and I've always had great results. Their passion and commitment to clients is unrivaled. They step beyond the role of recruiter and become strategic business partners. I can't recommend them highly enough.

David Hornik, August Capital General Partner

Jamie was a strategic partner to us at a key point in time for Bill.com. She helped us make critical hires in marketing and sales as we were scaling our go-to-market. She took the time to learn the management team, the business and most importantly the culture. She worked tirelessly combing networking, finding non obvious candidates, passionately selling the company and ultimately closing the best people. She was a trusted partner and member of the team. If you have the opportunity to work with The Cole Group, you should!

Rene Lacerte, Bill.com CEO

Matt takes the time to truly understand your business. He then goes and finds a highly targeted list of qualified candidates so that you don't waste your time interviewing the wrong people. More importantly, he is able to begin selling these exceptional candidates on the opportunity even before they walk in the door for their first interview. Once you identify your top candidate, Matt then works his voodoo magic to close the candidate. And he goes through this entire process in a very small amount of time, finding candidates that are an order of magnitude more qualified than many other recruiters.

Kevin Chou, Kabam CEO

[The Cole Group] hit it out of the park for us. We gave [Matt] a tricky position that required a highly specialized skillset. He got it immediately and completed the search far faster than industry benchmarks. I was delighted, my board was delighted, and all in all I couldn't believe my good fortune. I attribute it to Matt's thoughtful, soft spoken, empathetic approach, and to his specialization and long experience around a few particular roles. Beyond the good outcome, he's a pleasure to work with: kind, incredibly responsive, and always willing to help out or provide advice even when he's not working on a search. I hardly want to recommend Matt – I'd prefer he remain a secret weapon.

Geoff Schmidt, Meteor CEO

Making executive level hires in a startup can be a terrifying experience. One bad hire can literally kill your company. One great hire can change the life of your future grandchildren. With this much on the line I only want to work with The Cole Group. Working with The Cole Group made me smarter about my own business in the way he questioned me and dug in to make sure we were finding the perfect skill set and culture fit.

Joe Fernandez, Klout CEO

I loved working with Gillian. We hired the first person she brought in, partly because the trust I had in her judgment.

Adil Aijaz, Split.IO CEO

Jamie played a key role in making our business a success. She not only helped to fill some of our key executive roles but she also went above and beyond in referring other candidates and business contacts to us free of charge. Jamie was great to work with because she really did her homework on our company and culture. It felt like she was as much a part of the team as anyone else at the company. That helped to find great people who were super talented and fit in with the culture. I would highly recommend working with Jamie if you need to build out your team!

Jameson Hsu, Mochi Media CEO

Matt is insightful, resourceful, pragmatic and exceedingly well connected. He jumped in and immediately got a good feel for what we were looking for given our product, market and culture. He was able to quickly get the attention of a wide variety of top-flight business development executives despite the fact that our startup was in a very early stage. And not only did he find and help us lock down an exceptional candidate, but he’s continued to make great introductions to helpful individuals throughout the industry, even after completing the hire. Working with Matt has been been excellent, I highly recommend him.

Jaron Waldman, Curbside CEO

Jamie is my go-to on important executive search hires. She has been a trusted friend and partner to the company over the years and takes the time to understand the business and culture. She's dependable, works harder than anyone I know and is fun to boot. I will be working with Jamie for years to come.

Zaw Thet, Signia Ventures General Partner

Many people have asked me for advice on retained searches. I've always recommended Matt as one of the guys that you have to speak to before making a decision, and here's why.

I've hired The Cole Group many many times now, which must say something. Seriously, they are some of the best recruiters out there. They're tireless. They represent the company and opportunity to candidates extremely well. And they exercise sound judgment in assessing fit, capabilities and potential. I strongly recommend The Cole Group, and look forward to working with them again and again.

Chris Moore, Redpoint Ventures

Jamie is a joy to work with and consistently gets great results. I've worked with her on a number of projects over the last few years and will continue to use and recommend her on every project I possibly can.

Andrew Anker, fmr CEO Tugboat Yards

I hope to work with Matt again. I found his work to be consistent, meeting/exceeding my expectations and of high quality. He exceeded my expectations insofar as his independence and trustworthiness--critical elements of a recruiter; and when we disagreed he was professional and drove the conversation to a constructive conclusion. My only hesitancy in writing a recommendation for him is that if he gets too busy, I will have competition when I need his help again!

Dave Selinger, fmr CEO RichRelevance

If you are looking for an excellent executive recruiter, stop here and hire Matt. Matt is smart, professional and hard working. He will take the time to deeply understand the needs of your business, the market and the company’s culture. He will connect you with amazing candidates and will not waste your time on others. He will support you through the hiring process with data and smart advice all the way to a successful completion. I highly recommend Matt!

Amir Ashkenazi, CEO Adap.TV

Matt absolutely rocks! I had a terrible experience last year on a retained search that cost me money and time and turned up nothing, not even a viable candidate. I vowed never to use a recruiter again.

Well, that changed from the moment I met Matt. I spoke to Matt just before Christmas last year and said I needed my position filled asap. He was up and running within days of us talking and even had a couple folks lined up before the end of the year. He is a fantastic listener and understood the phase of my startup and the type of person that would both bring value to the company and one that works well with me. The candidate we ended up hiring was one of the first people he brought forward. His candidates were almost all right on the money which means less wasted time for me and him. There is only one thing that probably matters if you are reading this recommendation.. would I work with Matt again? Absolutely yes! He is the first person I would call. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me.

Carnet Williams, CEO Sprout

Paying a recruiter was an agonizing concept for my frugal entrepreneur self. Instead, I was determined to fill a recent VP position myself through my network. After spending six month entangled in recruiting emails, phone calls and meetings I had nothing to show for it and threw in the towel by hiring the highly recommended Mr. Strand. References for Matt spoke of glorious 30 day recruiting cycles - from start to signed employment agreement; is that even possible? What impressed me about Matt from the beginning, aside from his professionalism, was his ability to quickly synthesize the elements of our job description and then passionately advise me and lead me to the right pool of candidates. In the end, Matt delivered perfectly and while I anticipated a three month cycle we miraculously made our hire within 30 days. I should have hired Matt from the beginning.

Brad Jefferson, CEO Animoto

Matt is one of the most talented executive recruiters I have ever worked with. He assisted us on a recent senior executive hire and the process was excellent. He provided us with an outstanding pool of candidates, managed the process extremely well, built a terrific rapport with me and my team, had a complete understanding of our company and what we were looking for, and we completed the hire ahead of schedule. I would absolutely work with Matt again.

Chris Maher, CEO Ebureau

Jamie has done two searches for me in the last year, GM for a business and SVP Business Development. In both, results were outstanding and process was efficient. Jamie and her partner have outstanding networks and listen carefully to what you need. The result is a process in which you see just the right number of candidates, all of whom are credible in terms of both fit and credentials. Often her choices are also designed to force you to think about what you really want- something I have not seen before from a recruiter. She works well with your team and with the candidates and is excellent at selling the opportunity- in both cases we got the person we wanted despite other opportunities. In a word - Outstanding.

Josh Pickus, CEO Support.com

Matt is the best recruiter I've worked with. He is an excellent listener. He pays close attention to verbal and non-verbal communication and asks clarifying questions. He listens to companies and candidates equally well and he is often better able to articulate the needs of a company or candidate then they are. He works with exceptionally strong candidates. Because he is a good listener, candidates trust Matt and are always willing to explore opportunities that he thinks might be a good fit for them. He gets business. He has a good understanding of how money is made online, and he understands how successful companies become successful. This makes him more of a partner than a recruiter. Recommended highly!

Rob Goldman, CEO Swaylo

Working with Matt is a tremendous competitive advantage for our company. He completed critical exec searches for us with extremely high caliber people. Throughout he introduced us to partners, customers, consultants - even board members. He knows everyone. On top of this he is a blast to work with. I can't recommend him highly enough!

David Karandish, CEO Answers.com

Matt is fantastic! He ran a great search for us and we hired a rock star CMO. We had a difficult set of requirements with a lot of moving pieces. Throughout, Matt was really thoughtful about each of the candidates and who was going to be best for our business and why. We met a lot of great people through the process, made the hire quickly and we're very happy with the result. I can't recommend Matt highly enough!

Avi Nowogrodski, CEO Clarizen

Matt is an exceptional professional. He challenges clients with tough questions; makes placements that work for all involved; and is one of the hardest-working, most entrepreneurial executive recruiters you will ever encounter. Matt knows a broad range of talented candidates, and is trusted by clients and candidates alike. He works for the long-term, and in a profession where the demands and challenges on the recruiter are unrelenting, Matt is is both intensely results-driven and principled. I have worked with him as both a client and a candidate, and will work with him for years to come. He is, in the simplest of terms, a star.